Movie Reviews

Come here and post a review for a movie you saw, in theatres, on DVD, VHS, off of itunes, etc, etc. I guess we could include blu ray as well. We should probably follow some sort of format too, like reviewing, giving a certain number of stars...what sounds fair, 5/5?

I'll start:

WWE The Ladder Match

Ok, so I just got this from amazon, along with History Of The IC Championship(which I'm still waiting for), and I've decided to do a review. First off, ladder matches have always been one of my favorites, though I've just recently seen a few slightly boring ones....when they aren't good, they are pretty bad.

So, going into this, I was aware of some of the matches that would be involved, and it's definately been a smart buy. A few different TLC matches, Money In The Bank, Ladder, etc. Matches involving the likes of HBK, The Hardy Boyz, E & C, Team 3D, RVD, Jericho, Benoit, and many, many others. There's actually such a good match selection, both in quantity and quality.

Paranoid Park (2007), Directed by Gus Van Sant, must have been 25 minutes before the film makers thought it was too short and needed to add unnecessary clips of skater punk's butt cracks, flipping their boards in slow motion, showing our main character; no I'm sorry I won't even give him the right the called the main character, let's call Alex the character the story circulated around. So Alex walks in slow motion, literally everywhere, where a whole 3 minute song could play while he just walks. I haven't read the book but I'm sure that Blake Nelson, the author of the book thought, "Hey, you know what's a good idea for my book? If I wrote about Alex, the character that the story circulates around, to walk for a really long time. In fact he'll walk and walk and walk and turn his head and walk and walk and turn his head and stay that way for a while, in the meantime crappy music no one can bare for another minute plays in the background." You might have a hard time spotting the walking mop head character in the film seeing how everyone in the film seems to be walking around with mops glued to their craniums.

So in Mophead Park, Alex, the character the story circulates around, accidentally murders a police officer as much as one could accidentally murder anyone. He apparently forgets he murdered anyone because his guilt scene was the only time he ever looked like he felt guilt. He actually had to see a picture of the dead body to jog his memory so he could say "OH RIGHT I KILLED SOMEONE LAST WEEKEND, DIDNT I? OH WELL, OH WELL. BACK TO MY LIFE". But anyway, Alex lives on, the rest of the story basically getting absolutely nothing accomplished. This is supposed to be a modern retelling of "Crime and Punishment", not a retelling of Justin Beiber's love life.

The story's integrity was extremely weak. Entire scenes of the movie were replayed, slow scenes were replayed, and did they make sense after they replayed it? Yes, but was there any reason for the film makers to confuse the viewer in the first place? Absolutely not! Like I said in the beginning of the review the film would have been better off if they got rid of all of the slowmotion, if they got rid of all the filler skater punks with a disgusting gritty filter, if they got rid of every scene that made me want to eat my own face in. At times of the most slowest shots I felt compelled to reach under the couch in hopes to find a gun I can use to paint the ceilings with my brains. In the end of the film (I don't care, I'll end up not recommending you see this movie anyway so I can tell you its damn ending) Alex, the character the story circulates around, burns his notebook. Instead of showing him in front of a fire burning the book, they show him burning every single individual page. You could have gotten the idea across with him standing in front of a fire, there's no need whatsoever for all that time wasted! There were scenes in Slowmotion Park where character actually sat down to talk to each other but they thought it would be "artsy" if they broke the fundamental rules of filmmaking and only focus on one character in a dialog scene. This happened often throughout the movie but there was this one particular scene which was absolutely unbearable in which you only heard Alex's voice but saw Macy's fat pimply disgusting face throughout the entire scene. They could have graced us by cutting over to Alex every now and then but they didn't. That's not good editing! That's not good filmmaking! That's not good story telling! That's not good art! That's not good anything! There was this one scene where Alex, the character the story circulates around, breaks up with his girlfriend. They took out all the dialog and replaced it with terrible music probably because the acting was so terrible the editors couldn't bare listen to it.

That's another thing to rant on! The acting was as stone cold as a politician's heart. The actors delivered their lines with such emotion that rivals a giant pine cone. Every time Alex, the character the story circulates around, opened his mouth I think a part of me died. His VOs were even worse, they sounded like a robot from the 90s and would only get worse as the story progressed... Wait scratch that, the story NEVER progressed, it just got longer. Not only was Alex's (the character the story circulates around) acting was horrendous, but every other actor's acting. The officer's acting was decent... But otherwise it just sucks. Well okay, honestly. How well do you think the acting could get when Gus auditioned them from fucking Myspace?

They storyline was an utter mess. It was as if someone wrote a terrible script, shredded it into a million pieces, stuffed it into a shotgun, and fired it into a sea of shredded terrible scripts. Then in a realization that "holy cow we have a movie to make" hit the filmmakers, they tried to desperately put the script back together. I kid you not. Scenes were out of place, there was a character named Rachel that was introduced, she had a two minute slow motion close up, she said nothing and did nothing, she was just there wasting two minutes of the audience's life. Those two minutes go by as fast as a snail pushing an anvil across China. What does Rachel do? What was so significant? What was her role dammit?! She might as well have been a completely different character from the sea of shredded terrible scripts where the slowmotion closeup could have played a more significant role in a different story! Let me give an example: "Mother died", bam! Slowmotion close up! Not "Walks into restaurant", bam! Slowmotion close up!" While I'm on the subject, What's the point of all the out of focus close ups and slowmotion bad music scenes? Half of the movie is bad dialog, the other half is completely irrelevant! I thought that Alex broke up with his girlfriend a long time ago, then they hold hands and have sex then he breaks up with her again! What the hell?

What I was most surprised about was how well it did in the box office. It grossed over $4,000,000, it took $3,000,000 to make. They say that the cinematography was amazing and that's what made the film, well if I throw together a bunch of pretty slow motion close ups of pimply teenager's faces together and sat you down for three straight hours would you say "Oh yeah the movie was slow but it looked so pretty, I have to give it high ratings!" Reviewers usually score the terrible film rather highly, I don't see why. There's actually nothing to like about it. The only way the story could be seen as "deep" is as in "deep shit".

So if I were to rate Absolutely Irrelevant Park anything I would give it "Shit out of Ten." And I lied earlier. I recommend you see this film if you get entertained by watching paint dry, watching grass grow, watching the ceiling fan spin, watching 12 oz. Mouse, or watching your parents bleed to death.

I already posted this on another thread but I felt like resurrecting this thread after reading Mercy's review.

Fast Five

I always liked the Fast series for the cars, the races and the excitement. What Fast Five did was throw it all into a bin and become a crappy Ocean's Eleven ripoff. There was one actual race and even that was off screen with no real consequences. There was waaay too much drama for the crappy acting/writing and considering that this was, you know, an action movie. As far as the action went, it all was ridiculous to no end. I'm not saying I want realism in my movies but for the love of God, make it at least coherent in some way. If I want to watch a heist movie I will watch Italian Job or any Ocean's film, not this crap. Definitely not going to see the next movie. Even the producers of the movie said that they are starting to court a different audience with these. The only saving grace was The Rock and a couple of the minor characters. Speaking of The Rock, he actually was one of the two or three bearable actors in this movie. Please don't let Vin Diesel have this many lines in a movie ever again. At least to me it was complete waste of time and not in a good way.

I already posted this on another thread but I felt like resurrecting this thread after reading Mercy's review.

Fast Five

I always liked the Fast series for the cars, the races and the excitement. What Fast Five did was throw it all into a bin and become a crappy Ocean's Eleven ripoff. There was one actual race and even that was off screen with no real consequences. There was waaay too much drama for the crappy acting/writing and considering that this was, you know, an action movie. As far as the action went, it all was ridiculous to no end. I'm not saying I want realism in my movies but for the love of God, make it at least coherent in some way. If I want to watch a heist movie I will watch Italian Job or any Ocean's film, not this crap. Definitely not going to see the next movie. Even the producers of the movie said that they are starting to court a different audience with these. The only saving grace was The Rock and a couple of the minor characters. Speaking of The Rock, he actually was one of the two or three bearable actors in this movie. Please don't let Vin Diesel have this many lines in a movie ever again. At least to me it was complete waste of time and not in a good way.

Okay I've decided to try this review thing yet again to a movie I truly dislike

Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2(2000), the 'Sequel' to the Blair Witch Project. Directed Joe Berlinger.Now, unlike its predecessor, it’s a 'scary' movie telling the tale of five idiots that starts a Blair witch tour group into the woods. The only character you’ll probably recognize is Jeffrey Donovan from Burn Notice. He is the tour guide along with a writer and his pregnant girlfriend, an annoying Wiccan, and a goth chick that have…sigh…psychic powers, that all you need to know. Stuff happened, pretty stupid stuff that makes no sense, no matter how many times you bother to watch the movie. The characters are annoying, the plot is stupid, it’s not scary, and it has little to nothing to do about the Blair Witch. The connection (if any) is hardly made. If you even bother to care to ask: ‘what in blazes is the Book of Shadows?’ Well get this, it is never seen or mentioned in the entire film. I swear; it’s like they made a different film and decided to slap on Blair Witch 2 as the title. Don't watch it unless you want to riff it a new one.This movie sucks! 2/10

For those who hasn't seen it yet. This is the Dark Knight Rises review, kind of old, but still, just my thoughts. Wrote this the night after I saw it.

Spoiler:

So I saw this movie last night, it was pretty good.

It's called The Dark Knight Rises, and what took Marvel five movies to build this type of hype, Batman did it in two. I'll be honest, as much of a Batman fan I am, I wasn't freaking out over this movie. Actually, I didn't freak out over any of the Nolan films, this doesn't mean that I don't like them. But I don't want to rant about my thoughts if it's good or if it's bad, that's entirely up for you to decide. I only want to present my ideas about what I thought.

I'm going to say this; I don't feel that they stood true to Batman's character, his integrity, what makes him, HIM. If Criminals are still Cowardly and Superstitious, he will be there. I like what Superman said in the last episode of Justice League: Unlimited to Darkseid: "You don't understand, that man won't stop until he's dead." The first thing Alfred does is implore his boss to quit his crusade on crime, and this theme doesn't leave the screen. And by the end of the film, Bruce retires and runs away with Selina, he passes the mantle of Batman to John Blake. Is this how the legend ends? With Batman and Catwoman in another country with clean slates, starting their lives over, while he leaves possibly the most important job to a cop who hasn't nearly had enough training as he has? In Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Bruce is on his journey to become the Batman, but in between he falls madly in love with a woman who gets in the way of his mission. He cries in front of his parent's grave, asking if it's wrong to feel happy while they're dead. In the end, he chooses The Batman, the symbol that he was meant to be. I may be nitpicking, since I could literally tear apart the Burton films until there's nothing left; I have to be fair, the Nolan films are the best interpretation of Batman so far. They're not perfect in any way, and I know it's a movie, which is supposed to be separated from the comics.

As for the plot, it's really convoluted and you have to really pay attention. This is by far the darkest Batman film in the franchise. It makes every other Batman movie ever made seem chipper and light by comparison, even Batman Returns and The Dark Knight, which I thought they were both twisted and depressing. I also saw every other Super Hero Block Buster this summer, Avengers and The Amazing Spider-Man both fall heavily short when it comes to this movie, and I'm going to have brief comparisons, but just to say it straight out, neither film left an impression as big as The Dark Knight Rises had.

The Avengers knew that everyone and their four year old boys were going to go out to see this movie, and they did do better in their opening weekend than the Dark Knight Rises in the end, but when it comes to content, The Avengers wasn't entirely plot heavy. It was sort of like: "Alright big bad guy, beat him up, go!" Sure there was conflict between characters like Cap and Iron Man, Hulk and Thor, and everyone else, but conflict between a team isn't enough to carry a story, it's expected, but in the end that's all they had. Bruce had more conflict with all the characters in the story including himself, dead characters, and characters he didn't even know yet he had strife against yet, that was all in the background, and they brought the plot out to shine.

In The Amazing Spider-Man, Peter Parker had all these problems, then he got bit by a radioactive spider, and instead of dying, he got super powers and went "Wheeeee" from building to building beating up bad guys that looked like his uncle's killer, because he can. In The Dark Knight Rises, an army of assassins underground crippled Commissioner Gordon, Bane made attacks on Bruce Wayne's money and the stock market in general, Batman was not a product of a bad situation, he wasn't cursed with the power of awesome like Peter Parker was, he was not solving his problems by wearing his cape and cowl, he was introducing more torment, more demons to deal with.

The movie is really dialog heavy, and is full of surprises and twists. The one thing I appreciate about this movie is that even though it's nearly 3 hours long, the passage of time isn't present. Once you get into the movie, it's hard to keep the time when Gotham is shot to hell, things seem to be getting worse and worse and you wonder how is Batman going to fix everything in the end, when nearly everyone imaginable is against him. Not to say that his scene in the prison, nor those within those cells were against him. The scene where he was climbing up to the top is the most powerful scene in the movie. The men chanting "Rise! Rise! Rise!" mimicked my own feelings, and it was even better when Bruce made the jump, the entire audience applauded. It defiantly stroked emotional keys in everyone.

Looking forward for what Batman has in store next isn't a matter of if though, it's a matter of when. Like many others, when they reboot Batman, I think they should introduce the next Batman in the upcoming Justice League movie instead of showing Batman's origins for the fourth time. Really, directors, please understand this, everyone and their grandma knows Batman's origin.

The Dark Knight Rises isn't without flaws, and there are lots of things I don't have the chance to mention everything I would like without losing track or dragging this on for too long. I have plenty of thoughts about this movie, but I feel like I touched on a good amount of what I wanted to talk about.

The answer is yes, and Capcom's latest CG film Resident Evil Damnation has proved it. Where the last CG film and numerous live action films had failed, Damnation had prevailed. I must be honest, I was hesitant when picking up my copy of Damnation because I'm not liking where Resident Evil 6 is going and Degeneration had to have been the worst $20 I've ever spent. You probably can't find anyone more skeptical about the new CG film than I was a week ago. I would have rather spent it on DC's new animated adaptation of The Dark Knight Returns, but I wanted a story that I didn't already know. I was prepared for a shitstorm of a story, really bad original characters, and horrible animation, I sat down with a pretty closed mind, even if people were saying the movie was good.

The movie opens up with Leon shooting so many corny one liners, I feel that there's not going to be any dialog for the rest of the movie. Then Leon gets captured, a flamboyant american-loving european who hates america, passing as a gangsta fresh punk, starts calling Leon "dawg" and "homie" I say to myself "Oh boy, this is going to turn out really shitty." Then the next thing you know, zombies infected with las plagas appear and I'm on the edge of my seat, tensing up, looking away from the screen, and wetting my pants. The original characters are brilliant, the goofy character I mentioned earlier happened to be my favorite in the film, next to the Buddy, who ended up being a total badass. Leon was really likable in this movie and it seemed like you could connect with him more than you could in Degeneration.

Yes, the movie sounds terrible on paper: Ada Wong with the BSAA, Leon losing his American citizenship, Buddy—my neighbor's dog—controls Lickers, but the film knows suspense, they know horror, and they know how to connect you with the characters revolving around the plot. Is it still ridiculous as fuck? Yes. Yes it is, and believe me you can notice the corny ridiculous shit that goes on, coupled with Leon's fascination with one liners it sometimes gets in the way of just how well the story is put together. Some things are definitely not needed but added in anyway as fan service, like Ada's catfight, even if this is just nitpicking.

The graphics are definitely better, the mo-cap is more accurate, the music is a huge improvement from Degeneration, anything from Degeneration was amplified in this film, it seems like the last movie just served as a stepping stone for experience for the filmmakers in this movie. One major problem I had with Degeneration was that everyone's shoulders were so broad, the women looked manly, the men looked like robots, and the zombies looked like just… bad. The animation was also really bad in that film, but every second of Damnation looked beautifully crafted, especially the Lickers which were pretty much hand animated.

The one big problem they faced was the lipsyncing. Practically every line delivered was off sync, and since this movie and the last were synced in English and the director doesn't understand a word of English, he can only direct the facial expressions of the actors. It did get in the way for me since I'm such a stickler for good animation, I feel that they would have done a better job if they animated the faces by hand. Normally what a studio would do is record the voices first, then animate to sync with the voice, but in this, the voice actor looks at how the animated face goes and they try to match the lips.

Overall I give the film an 8 out of 10. Learn to sync voices and keep the ridiculous shit a little more spread out throughout the movie and it would be the perfect Resident Evil Film, the story was amazing, the animation was breathtaking, and the characters were all so very captivating.

Two cops patrol a crime ridden neighborhood in LA. Jake Gyllenhaal plays a law student who is documenting his experiences as a cop for a project.

Review

I really enjoyed this flick! This is a gritty, ruthless, realistic portrayal of a police officer's life. Characters felt like actually people and the scenarios were believable. Some scenes were even tough to watch. IMO, End of Watch is one of the most accurate portrayals of policing I've ever seen.

The only flaw was the criminal organization wasn't fleshed out properly. I wanted to know more about them.